Background of the invention is seen, among others, in the Swedish patent application SE 9604750-1 having the publication number SE 508770, corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 6,237,536. This publication shows an animal box having a floor in the form of an endless belt, which is intermittently movable in the longitudinal direction of the box, an operating device, and a driving device for the operating device.
Such floors tend to become slippery and therefore the animals setting foot upon the floor may slip and hurt themselves. Thus, such ones have to be anti-slip. Furthermore, such floors have to be of high tensile-strength and resistant to wear.
Particularly in the breeding of pigs, a hard-wearing floor has to be used, but these floors can from experience not be produced as a liquid-impervious mat since experiments with such mats have shown that the mat is bit in pieces. Therefore, such mats have previously been manufactured from rigid floor elements, which have been coupled together by a form of joint to be possible to be bent around a drive roller with the problem that the tightness has been lost. Such constructions are also complicated to manufacture, assemble/disassemble, and maintain.
Other durable flexible materials have been tested but turned out to be too slippery to constitute a satisfactory alternative. Even if these durable materials have been provided with a roughened surface to form a slip elimination, the slip problems have remained.